


In Praise of "Beer Bad"

by beer_good



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Beer, Gen, Meta, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beer_good/pseuds/beer_good
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is s4e05 "Beer Bad" a misunderstood masterpiece?</p><p>Yes. Yes it is. And much like certain characters in it, I'm willing to talk at length about why that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Praise of "Beer Bad"

To nobody's surprise, "Beer Bad" is one of my favourite episodes of _Buffy_. I thought I'd take this opportunity to jot down some possibly slightly serious thoughts about why. Let me just get a beer...

*pop*

...Now, trying to explain why I love this episode should be simple, but... see, when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?" I'm not going to argue that it's a great _Buffy_ episode, and it's undeniably very very silly, and there's no accounting for taste; some people simply don't find it funny. But...

One common argument against it that I keep coming across is that people treat it like a morality play, a Very Special Episode. As if the writers of _Buffy_ try to warn impressionable youths about the dangers of alcohol, and fail miserably because the message is simply a prissy "Kids, don't do drugs." Which, IMO, is unfathomable for two reasons:

One, because it's so gloriously silly. It's got cave!Buffy, ferchrissakes. There's no way in hell anyone could write, direct and act this and think they were doing anything with any sort of serious message. If anything, it's a parody of the sort of after-school specials I'm told US students have to sit through. It's a bit like watching _Reefer Madness_ (the original), except _Buffy_ knows it's being ludicrous. And the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy [agrees with me](http://beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com/140359.html?thread=2717767#t2717767)!

 _At least one show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was rejected after it showed itself to be immune to the drug office's worldview_  [this is government speak for "What are these people smoking?" - BG]. _"Drugs were an issue, but it wasn't on-strategy. It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to our message," says someone in the drug-policy office camp who read and helped reject it._

Two... because the message of it, if you desperately want to find one, _isn't_ abstinence – whether from beer or anything else. Yes, it hammers home the "beer bad" message so hard it becomes ridiculous – but it does the same thing to almost everything in the story, including things that are absolutely necessary for us to survive.

Not convinced? Okay.

_BUFFY: Just lots and lots of beer. It's nice. Foamy. Comforting. It's just beer._

It's easy to overlook how arcy "Beer Bad" is. Not so much plotwise – the Initiative is still just a background event – but in setting up the early character arcs here. Buffy's trying to get over Parker (and her own reaction to Parker), Willow and Oz are about to break up, and Xander and Giles are mostly feeling useless. All of that turns up in "Beer Bad", but it's a Buffy-centric episode...

_BUFFY: You know maybe, maybe he's just having trouble dealing. I mean, don't guys sometimes put the girl they really, really like inside these deep little brain fantasy bubbles where everything's perfect? They do that right? Maybe I'm in his bubble and then pretty soon he's going to realize that he wants more than just bubble Buffy and he'll pop me out and we'll go to dinner and it could happen right?_

So we start off right away with Buffy dreaming of rescuing Parker. And when she wakes up and sees him flirting with another girl...

_WALSH: So, how does this conflict with the ego manifest itself in the psyche? What do we do when we can't have what we want?_

...she does the same thing again, except she exaggerates the rescue to ridiculous proportions. Ice cream, flowers, bare chest.

Xander's working as a bartender. Note Xander's ID. Does anyone buy that? Of course not. It's not remotely realistic.

 _WILLOW: I don't believe this is entirely on the up and up._  
_XANDER: What gives it away?_  
_WILLOW: Looking at it._

If that's not metacommentary on the episode itself and its supposed message, I don't know what is. And then we step into the bar, where we're going to stay for much of the episode. We meet the Beer Jerks: a gang of very pretentious students who want beer, women, and admiration for being smart – except when they try to sound smart, all they do is pile big words on top of each other. Which is pretty dumb. But hey, one of the best things about drinking beer is that everything you say to others drinking beer beside you becomes very deep and thoughtful. They've paid attention in class, but they haven't actually learned anything. Well, maybe one thing:

_BEER JERK #1: The thing that the modern day pundits failed to realize is that all the socio-echonomical and psychological problems inherent in modern society can be solved by the judicious application of way too much beer._

Meanwhile, the plot is spiralling merrily into lunacy – as always in _Buffy_ with some humorous exaggerations and misunderstandings, though here they seem even more on topic than usual. Willow claims to have killed a man to get a table (hyperbole), assumes Buffy had group sex (jumping to the extreme conclusion, which of course is wrong), and finally takes Parker apart into tiny little pieces (not for having sex with Buffy, but for betraying Buffy's trust), by applying her (rather outdated) Freud from psychology class.

_WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness._

...says Willow and stops driving stick. Ahem. Thanks, Parker, we owe you. (Hyperbole!) And then the cavemen start running wild, beating each other with sticks, kidnapping girls and setting fire to stuff. Fire. Huh-huh-huh. Xander – who's just been tipped about half a month's wages by the Beer Jerks, clearly too much, and actually seems to be warming up to the bartender job – finds out what's going on and confronts the villain:

_BARTENDER: Relax. It will wear off in a day or so.  
XANDER: In "a day or so", someone could get killed. (Leaves, comes back) You're a bad, bad man._

Yup, Captain Obvious and Idboy are writing this episode. And they know what we want: we want to see cave!Buffy scare the pants off Xander and Giles, and then give Parker what he deserves to tie back to the start; Buffy the College Student dreams and mulls over, Buffy of the Clan of the Cave Bear cuts through all the shit and applies the simplest solution via blunt trauma to the head. And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got. Cavemen win.

_BARTENDER: That's the great thing about beer. It makes all men the same._

Now, I could sit here for a while and list the funniest moments in this episode – apart from the fact that I think the funniest thing about it all is the way it consistently sends up and subverts everything it touches simply by making it impossible to take completely seriously. But I was trying to meta, right? Well, here's a key line:

_BUFFY: It's just... Parker's problem with intimacy turns out to be that he can't get enough of it. And I knew it._

And yet nobody says the message of the episode is "Don't try to connect with people." Well, OK, I guess a lot of people see it as yet another "Sex is bad" message, but... note the repeated use of the word "intimacy" rather than "sex." And note who ends up on the ground with a bump on his head. Silliness can be a wonderful way to deflate a serious subject, and "Beer Bad" is very silly. But in the end, I love it precisely because it _doesn't_ have a simple message of "Don't do this" (except for Parker.) The point is that anything, if judiciously applied to extreme levels without fore- or afterthought or consideration for others, will fuck you up. What you learn isn't the morals, isn't the big words, isn't the exact rules on what to do or not to do; what you learn is _that_ you learn something from everything that happens, and you somehow piece it together into a workable self after you sober up. It's called experience.

 _XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?_  
_BUFFY: Foamy!_  
_XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear._

...And with that, Buffy's out of the bubble(s). The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.

 _WALSH: We won't be able to cover it all in the class, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth knowing and it doesn't mean it won't be on the mid-term. Now, if I've been unclear in any way, speak now._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in July 2010.


End file.
